Verizon Talks Up Mobile Video Service

The chief executive of Verizon Wireless said Friday that his company could have the beginnings of a wireless video network in place by the holidays.

The chief executive of Verizon Wireless said Friday that his company could have the beginnings of a wireless video network in place by the holidays.

Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, Verizon chief executive Lowell McAdam said that negotiations are beginning between Verizon and content providers.

"Most content providers realize that the number of channels and the layout that you have within your home may not be appropriate for the mobile environment, and those discussions are just beginning now," McAdam told the paper. Some content providers have preferred an a la carte approach, he said.

McAdam, however, is seeking FCC approval for about $3.6 billion in spectrum licenses that must be approved by the agency. In January, Verizon announced plans to purchase 122 Advanced Wireless Systems (AWS) spectrum licenses from SpectrumCo, LLC, a joint effort from Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks.

Some analysts said they saw the deal as a bid to win approval by putting forward a way for both Verizon and consumers to benefit via additional services. Verizon and Comcast recently took to Capitol Hill to defend the deal, which has been criticized as one that would give Verizon and AT&T 60 percent of the available spectrum.

Other carriers have already put in place video services, including Sprint and T-Mobile. T-Mobile TV, for example, is priced at either $4.99 per month or $9.99 per month for two tiers of TV service and allows customers to access pre-recorded and live video that can be streamed to the phone. The first 30 days are free. Some device makers, such as HTC, have included their own video streaming services as well.

Mark Hachman Mark joined ExtremeTech in 2001 as the news editor, after rival CMP/United Media decided at the time that online news did not make sense in the new millennium.
Mark stumbled into his career after discovering that writing the great American novel did not pay a monthly salary, and that his other possible career choice, physics, required a degree of mathematical prowess that he sorely lacked.
Mark talked his way into a freelance assignment at CMP’s Electronic Buyers’ News, in 1995, where he wrote the...
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